


point of intersection

by jjokkiri



Category: VICTON (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, And Byungchan Is A Ray Of Sunshine Who Flirts With Him, Flirting, Hanse Dwells On His Teenage Angst, High School Reunions, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:13:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28052223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjokkiri/pseuds/jjokkiri
Summary: As they graduated, Hanse remembers Byungchan, all good-natured and playful, telling him,‘don’t be a stranger!’And just like that, seven years passed and they hadn’t said a word to one another.
Relationships: Choi Byungchan/Do Hanse
Comments: 6
Kudos: 47
Collections: VICFEST®—round two!





	point of intersection

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt #523** —High school reunions suck. They’re full of people you’d rather forget, all trying to prove they’re doing better than you. That’s what Hanse keeps telling himself, surrounded by his former classmates. But then he recognizes Byungchan, tall and gangly Byungchan, and maybe high school reunions don’t suck so much.

Hanse doesn’t want to be here.

It isn’t a secret that he doesn’t want to be there, though.

It’s clear on his face that he isn’t having the time of his life. He’s sitting in the middle of a crowd of people he barely remembers. It feels a little bit ridiculous and if he was given the choice, he wouldn’t have come. But something was gnawing at him, urging him to leave his apartment for the night because it couldn’t be too bad.

His instincts were wrong, he thinks. He doesn’t want to be here because it’s all a blur of memories he doesn’t want. At sixteen, the world almost seemed to revolve around trying to impress the people sitting around him. At twenty-five, he couldn’t care less what they thought of him.

Few of them are any different from what he remembers. Time is supposed to change people, but the popular kids all feel as smug as ever and Hanse doesn’t like the way they look at him.

He feels out of place sitting with all of his high school classmates when they’re all trying to one-up each other in achievements. He doesn’t understand the need to flaunt everything they’ve accomplished in the time since they graduated high school. He doesn’t understand the need for them to prove that they’re all doing better than him.

 _High school reunions suck._ He couldn’t care less about the rich kids who found trophy husbands at twenty-three, who stick to their sides with sickening smiles like fancy accessories. He couldn’t care less about the kids who gave up their degrees to chase an entrepreneurial dream he _knows_ won’t work out.

He’s proud of the ones who put in hard work, the ones who show it in the ways they carry themselves and not in their words, but they’re all like him. They don’t speak about their accomplishments like it’s the only topic of conversation. They’re like him—looking like they don’t want to be there.

Alumni gatherings aren’t supposed to be an excuse to shove your tongue down an old classmate’s throat—Hanse barely wants to know why he has to deal with it every time he makes his way over to the refreshments table.

“Hanse, you look so different! I barely recognized you!” He hears it often; he hears it from everyone around him. And he knows. He made an effort to look different after leaving high school—consciously forward fashion choices, pretty ink all over his body, and bleached blond hair, despite his will to not stand out.

It gets boring to hear from the people around him because they’re all people who never cared to spare him a glance in high school. He wonders if the changes he made for himself might have drawn more attention had he done it in high school. But he supposes that if at twenty-five he doesn’t want the attention of the people sitting with him tonight—he shouldn’t have ever wanted it in high school.

He feels out of place here.

It isn’t the nagging feeling of not fitting in that he felt in his adolescence, though. It’s nothing like the teenaged angst of realizing that you wouldn’t ever be one of the popular kids. _It isn’t like that._ It’s the realization that their relationships were all like frayed edges of fabric at the end of their high school careers. And with time, with the lack of care, they only grew further apart; unsalvageable.

And because they’re so unsalvageable, he doesn’t know why he tries.

He shouldn’t have come, but he can’t deny that a part of him was curious.

He practically flew off the radar after their high school graduation, unwilling to meet anyone from his high school again. And it’s a miracle that one of the girls in his year managed to grab a hold of his email address to contact him about the alumni reunion in the first place. It’s a miracle that the world is so small that one of Hanse’s regular clients happened to be an old classmate’s sister-in-law.

He shouldn’t have come. He should have remembered _why_ he didn’t want to come in the first place.

No matter how hard he tries, he doesn’t see how a tattoo artist who makes a hobby out of curling up under thick blankets in front of his sofa could ever fit in with the business school graduates who spend every waking moment trying to shove their feet into the corporate world. It feels like their worlds are too different for them to ever try—they’re all tangent lines that only move further away from one another as time passes.

But it isn’t tragic, he doesn’t think. He doesn’t miss this.

Hanse doesn’t think there are very many things more pretentious than the flutes of champagne laid out across the runners of the tables, but he thinks that if he hears another person brag about their love life, he might lose it.

He isn’t here to relive how much he hated high school, though. He is here to sate a curiosity he couldn’t shake.

So, at the very least, he could try his best to have a decent time. And that starts with getting away from the talkative start-up CEOs sitting across from him. He gets up from his seat, ignoring the confused looks from the man animatedly talking to the person beside him.

He offers him a polite smile, excusing himself to the refreshments table, again.

He doesn’t grab anything new—it’s just less crowded by the drinks. He prefers it.

It’s quieter. He can survey the people around him when he’s standing too far away for them to start conversations with him as an excuse to subtly smear their accomplishments all over him. He can take a breather to find people in the crowds who he would _actually_ want to spend his time with.

_“Hanse!”_

That’s a familiar voice.

Hanse whirls around to find the source, only to find himself stunned. He sees dark hair, brilliant eyes, and a handsome face. There’s a bright smile on that face, effectively silencing him; stilling him. He recognizes the man walking towards him—he recognizes Byungchan, tall and gangly Byungchan. _Everyone knows Byungchan._

Everyone knows Choi Byungchan—he was the valedictorian of their graduating year. Hanse doesn’t remember seeing him in the building before this moment, but he doesn’t think that Byungchan can be missed in a crowd.

 _He must have just gotten here,_ he thinks.

But that doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense that the first person Byungchan seeks out would be _him._

They were never close in high school. They only shared a few classes and ran into one another in the hallways. But despite that, Byungchan was always friendly—almost to a fault, almost to the point of naivety. And Hanse remembers a time when he thought to himself, _‘what does it take to be Choi Byungchan’s friend?’_

As they graduated, Hanse remembers Byungchan, all good-natured and playful, telling him, _‘don’t be a stranger!’_ And just like that, seven years passed and they hadn’t said a word to one another.

He wonders if Byungchan ever considered him a friend.

His eyes widen a little when he looks up at Byungchan, bright smile and bright eyes—he doesn’t remember their height difference being so much. He looks excited to see him and Hanse doesn’t know _why._

“Hey,” Hanse greets him. Byungchan’s brightness feels overwhelming and Hanse almost feels breathless saying his name, “Byungchan. You came, too?”

“Hey,” Byungchan echoes. He looks flawless, but somehow, he sounds breathless. And still staring at Hanse, almost as if caught in a trance, he whispers, “Wow.”

Hanse blinks, afraid he misheard a simple greeting.

“I’m sorry?”

“I said _‘wow’_ ,” Byungchan says. He clarifies, “Wow, you’re still as pretty as ever.”

Hanse’s heart stills in his chest. His eyes widen incredulously. _What?_

“I’m _sorry_?” Hanse repeats, dumbfounded.

Byungchan laughs, scratching the back of his neck. He visibly seems to snap out of his little trance.

“Shit,” he says. He has the decency to look sheepish. “Sorry, was I too forward? I was just too caught up with—,” he gestures vaguely to Hanse before giving up and saying, “with how pretty you look.”

Hanse blinks rapidly at him.

He glances over his shoulder out of habit. He looks back at Byungchan, pointing to himself.

“Me?”

Byungchan chuckles, looking away from Hanse for the first time since he came to him. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his tailored suit, rocking back on the balls of his feet. He shrugs.

“Yeah,” he replies. “You look pretty, Hanse.”

If Hanse didn’t know any better, he might have thought that Byungchan looked shy.

He stares at him.

“… thank you,” he murmurs.

Byungchan beams at him.

“Can I get you a drink?” he asks.

Hanse chuckles at him. He has been here much longer than Byungchan has and he’s had more than enough to drink, but he supposes it doesn’t hurt if Byungchan is offering one more.

“Sure,” he replies. “Did you just get here?”

As if it’s a successful sign, Byungchan’s eyes immediately brighten at the acceptance. He throws his arm around Hanse’s shoulder like they’ve always been best friends and turns towards the drinks table with a dramatic sigh.

“Yeah,” he replies. “The weather is so bad this winter. The flights were all delayed, so I almost didn’t make it.”

“You flew in?” Hanse asks, frowning. Byungchan nods, carefully pouring a drink.

“I was halfway across the country,” Byungchan explains, handing him the glass in his hand. Hanse graciously accepts it. He grabs another glass for himself. “There’s no way I would have made it if I didn’t.”

Hanse scrunches up his nose.

“You could have saved yourself the trouble and stayed wherever you were.”

Hanse doesn’t catch the way Byungchan looks at him when he says, “I’m glad I came, though.”

There’s a softness in his voice that Hanse catches, though. It’s one that tells him he should be grateful he took a chance to step out of his comfort zone, too. It’s one that whispers to him that he should be happy that his curiosity bested him because seeing Byungchan again after seven years is one part of this reunion that doesn’t suck so much.

Somehow, it’s a reminder of Byungchan’s words when they were eighteen and graduating from high school.

Somehow, it’s a reminder of Byungchan’s smile when he told him not to be a stranger.

It’s a reminder that it’s been seven years and Byungchan smiles at him like he saw him yesterday, like they hadn’t thrown their undefined relationship to the wind as soon as they stepped beyond the doors of their high school.

It isn’t a tragic reminder that they’ve become strangers, though, because Byungchan still feels familiar.

He still feels like the same boy who took up the role of valedictorian because he was so popular with everyone around him that he was nominated to do it. He still feels like the boy who Hanse watched hide in the bleachers to scare a friend, only get stung by a bee in the baseball pitch behind their school. He still feels like Byungchan.

And Hanse supposes, that’s because he is.

That’s because the ambiguous lines in their relationship hasn’t ever changed.

It’s because Hanse never thought he knew Byungchan well enough to pinpoint any changes. All he’s ever been was the bright-eyed boy who excitedly greeted Hanse in the halls whenever he saw him. All he’s ever been was an enigma Hanse never dared to befriend because they _felt_ like they were leading different lives.

But, right here and right now, he thinks that maybe there was something skewing that vision. Something forcing them to look at the same point and see different things.

Because Byungchan looks at him like he _wanted_ to see him so badly.

There’s something in his eyes that looks like he’s saying, _‘If there’s anything I missed about high school, it’s seeing you.’_

“—you taking appointments?”

Hanse blinks himself out of his trance.

“I’m sorry?” he asks, “Did you say something? I wasn’t listening.”

Byungchan leans against the table beside him and chuckles. He tilts his head, “It’s okay. I was just asking if you were taking appointments.”

Hanse stares at him. _Appointments? For what? Tattoos? Piercings? What did Byungchan want?_

The embarrassment sinks in along with the belated realization that he can’t answer Byungchan’s question because he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Hanse shifts his eyes.

He supposes that everyone talks about work, though. He takes his chances with answering.

“Um, I’m kind of booked,” he says, quietly. “A couple regulars are coming back to get stuff touched up in the next few weeks. I won’t have any openings for a while.”

Byungchan chuckles at him.

He peers at him over the top of his glass with a smile.

“Oh, really?” he asks. There’s a mischievous glimmer in his eyes, but he looks thoughtful. “You’re all booked and busy. I was hoping to get some time in.”

Hanse frowns.

 _Some time? With him?_ He didn’t know Byungchan was aware of what he did for a living, but he supposes that Byungchan might keep closer tabs on their high school peers. Or it might be obvious in his appearance.

He doesn’t know how he feels about that last thought, though.

“Did you want to get something done?” he asks, his eyebrows furrowing with concern. “I can give you my number and you can text me the details. We can work out some time to get something done for you.”

“Oh, Hanse, you’d do that for me?” Byungchan asks, his eyes twinkling. He reaches into his pocket and fishes out his phone. He hands it over to Hanse, who quietly enters his number into Byungchan’s phone. “I don’t want anything complex. I’m not in the profession or anything, but an hour or two should be fine.”

Hanse laughs.

“Those estimates are for me to give,” he replies. Byungchan grins at him.

He dials his own number to save Byungchan’s phone number. And then, he carefully places Byungchan’s phone back into his hands.

It almost feels purposeful when Byungchan brushes their fingers together when he takes his phone back.

Hanse brushes off the electric feeling.

“Thanks, Hanse. I’ll shoot you a text with the details later tonight.”

* * *

Hanse doesn’t spend much more time with Byungchan, but the night ends quickly. Byungchan gets whisked away by their old classmates, but Hanse doesn’t feel too bothered by it. Byungchan isn’t his to keep, after all.

His phone buzzes repeatedly just as he rolls into bed.

`**Choi Byungchan (02:41):** Sorry Hanse, I lied about what sort of appointment I was looking for.`  
`**Choi Byungchan (02:42):** I don’t actually need a tattoo done. I was just trying to get your number.`  
`**Choi Byungchan (02:42):** How does meeting at the fancy restaurant downtown at seven on Friday sound?`


End file.
